RESTAURANTS

RESTAURANTS; Special Delivery

By KARLA COOK

Published: December 23, 2001

RARITAN—
HE is tall, dark and handsome and his eyes are locked with mine. His back is to the room so other distractions -- a woman walking by, the clink of a wine bottle touching the rim of a glass -- fade away. He leans toward me ever so slightly, his dark eyes only glancing at my companions' before returning to mine, and begins to talk. He speaks passionately, commandingly, with pauses for drama, his voice rising and falling.

Is it love? No, just the specials at Nonna's, lovingly and lavishly described, a list of sometimes two dozen that goes on and on. Later, I discover that everyone at the table thought he had locked eyes with them and spoken only to them of the feather-light house-made gnocchi, the smoked salmon napoleon, the celestial blueberry bread pudding.

Though two of his brothers are bankrolling this 55-seat Italian restaurant that specializes in seafood, it's clear that Kal Nasr is the pulse of the place. He swoops in to visit diners, to recite the specials with feeling, and then returns mid-meal to see how things are going. His attention to customer satisfaction has earned him the restaurateur's highest prize: repeat business with special requests.

One woman has ordered the slow-roasted duck with a black currant demiglace for her Christmas Eve visit; another, planning a house party, requested the bread pudding. ''I feel so good when people call me and say, 'I have a party in my house and I would like to serve your bread pudding,' '' Mr. Nasr said. ''I can't tell you how much happiness came to me when I heard that.''

Nonna's is Mr. Nasr's second venture; nearly a decade ago, he had a three-year fling with La Casa Verdi, in Middlesex. After selling it, he continued his Italian restaurant education at other New Jersey spots, including Il Pomodoro in Somerville and Gina Marie's in Scotch Plains. When the brothers Nasr found the corner site that once was Max's, Kal Nasr knew that Italian, not his native Egyptian, was the food he wanted to serve and he knew that he wanted Ash Raf, a longtime friend and fellow restaurant worker, to cook it.

At Nonna's, the food is generally good, sometimes very good, and occasionally excellent. Of the appetizers on the menu, the fried calamari is a tender tangle. It is bested by the juicy fried shrimp with a crunchy cornmeal crust, which in turn is bested by a crab cake that may not be Italian but could serve as a model, its golden exterior giving way at the touch of the fork to reveal fat chunks of rich flesh that slip into a shallow splash of champagne sauce.

Mr. Nasr prices pastas as entrees on the menu, but also will serve a smaller portion -- a good thing since portions at Nonna's are very generous. He offers New Jersey's signature pasta dish, rigatoni with peas and mushrooms in vodka sauce, but a more interesting choice is the house-made ravioli stuffed with porcini mushrooms and drizzled with a sauce flavored with black truffle oil. The pappardelle, with its shards of crunchy asparagus and bits of sun-dried tomatoes in addition to a heaping helping of shrimp and scallops, is a satisfying mix.

Some of Mr. Nasr's specials are equally satisfying. The boule filled with lobster, sea scallops and shrimp has just enough spark from its white wine sauce to blend the seafood with its chives, shallots and diced tomato. The spicy hot shrimp will heat you on a cold night, and I want to try his version of grilled baby octopus, as well as the baby rack of veal with a pistachio and truffle oil crust.

Entrees are solidly put together and reasonably priced: Mr. Nasr pairs fork-tender veal with wild mushrooms; with basil, tomato sauce and mozzarella; with shrimp, tomatoes, spinach and sage; and with prosciutto, mozzarella and tomatoes. Each costs around $16. Chicken dishes cost $14 each, but I eat too much chicken at home to pick any of the three basic combinations. Seafood is another story, and a well-executed one. The jumbo shrimp arrive tender and juicy, cooked just to pink, their sweetness blending with that of roasted peppers to balance the bitter broccoli rape in a classic dish. Sea scallops are well prepared too, succulent and sweet, simply presented in a white wine sauce.

Sauces are a strong point for Mr. Nasr's chef. He offers a good variety using various wines and spirits, so it's too bad that Nonna's lacks a liquor license.

There are other imperfections at this young restaurant that come, I think, from Mr. Nasr's intense desire to please. His specials list is endless and a trial to recall, and because of the noise in the room, many of the details can't be heard. I was loath to call him back for clarification because he had the whole room to work. Mr. Nasr could save everyone some angst by inserting a nightly specials list into the menu; he could still perform for each table, and it would help the kitchen, too. If the chef is busy tending two dozen specials, he doesn't have time to supervise myriad kitchen details, and I'm going to find grit in my spinach salad, the leg of lamb special is going to look and taste more like stew meat, the roast pork will emerge overcooked, and the coffee will be cold -- all of which has happened and all of which can be corrected quickly and easily.

Nonna's is on its way to becoming a sophisticated player in the Italian restaurant genre. Mr. Nasr has the passion and the staff. All he needs is restraint.